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Comment by Erlich_Bachman | Hacker News Reader

What exactly is wrong with selling the stuff at a price that will easily find buyers?

Those items were not controlled by the government, there were no quotas in place or anything like that, so what exactly did you report those listings for? What crime, or even what ethical problem do you see with it? Just don't buy it if you think it's too expensive. It would be one thing if it was a big company that was ordered by the government to give masks to hospitals, but the listings you talk about were likely from individuals who had small stocks that were free to do with those stocks as they pleased.

It sounds like you didn't want to pay the price that the seller wanted, but instead of simply refusing to buy you tried to go around and try to abuse the reporting system to force them to sell cheaper in a new listing.

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> It sounds like you didn't want to pay the price that the seller wanted, but instead of simply refusing to buy you tried to go around and try to abuse the reporting system

Or perhaps they simply know Ebay's policy on the matter.

"We encourage our community to report any listings they suspect of price gouging to us."

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/prohibited-restricted-ite...

Ebay's policy is simply wrong. It may be a good move for them PR wise, but it will only result in people being unable to obtain the goods they need. When real prices shoot up, people will just avoid selling those things via Ebay at all.

It is wrong to substantially rise the price of the health-related product if you suddenly see there is a big need for it. It is non-ethical and totally wrong!

Care to explain why? You wrote that you think it is wrong, but no explanation.

Are you saying that all health products should be excluded from normal market forces and that someone (government?) should mandate fixed prices on all of them at all times? That just by virtue of being health-related they should not be in the normal market? We sure don't seem to do or particularly fancy this type of economic planning anywhere in the west...

Because createding artificial scarcity that will kill people is wrong.

How is it artificial when the shortage itself (which means real lack of supply compared to amount of demand) gave possibility to set such high prices in the first place? How is that scarcity "artificial"?

Stockpiling

A price cap will cause a shortage. THAT is artificial scarcity. Allowing the market to select prices that keep masks in stock is the opposite!

>Allowing the market to select prices that keep masks in stock is the opposite!

In this situation it also makes sure that the rich can be a lot better protected from a virus than the poor, that is not ethical in my mind. Yes, the market will produce more, but that takes time, time during which people die.

The rich are better off in every way than the poor, every day. That's the nature of life. It isn't fair. Life being unfair doesn't mean something unethical is happening. Ostensibly, those that have the money to pay more either worked more for it, got luckier, or someone else who worked harder or got luckier loved them enough to gift them their wealth. Why should people be punished for luck or receiving a gift (inheritance) because it's 'unfair' to other people who weren't so lucky?

It isn't the rich peoples' fault, or the poor peoples', that there was a sudden surge in demand for these goods, or that the market did its job in adjusting the goods to their new real price in order to keep them on shelves. That's exactly what you want. Otherwise, no amount of luck or hard work will allow you to get that good even if you really, really, want it, and are willing to sacrifice other goods in order to pay the elevated -- but worth it, due to the circumstances -- price, because that elevated price was banned by people crying about "price gouging."

I need to get off of this website.

Such behavior is wrong on the west, east, north and south. USA and many other countries have laws which regulate prices.

> It is wrong to substantially rise the price of the health-related product if you suddenly see there is a big need for it. It is non-ethical and totally wrong!

Wrong why? I mean, in a time of scarcity how do you ensure that only those who need it the most are able to self-moderate their purchases?

I should point out the fact that artificially restricted selling prices lead to shortages really quick, as people tend to binge buy in those circumstances thus depleting supplies. It happens with bottled water in hurricanes, it happened with toilet paper in the first covid19 lockdowns, and it sure as hell happened with face masks as well.

I will bet you any amount of money that the people who need to physically work, and therefore trivially the ones most in need of good masks, aren't the ones buying them at free-market rates.

Econ 101 doesn't talk much about the impact of wealth inequality on free-market mechanisms, for some reason.

> I will bet you any amount of money that the people who need to physically work, and therefore trivially the ones most in need of good masks, aren't the ones buying them at free-market rates.

As the covid19 pandemic showed, they surely are not the ones buying them all all at artificially restricted prices either, because the jackass with the shopping carts and the desperate need to hoard all types of basics decided to clean up the inventory.

> Econ 101 doesn't talk much about the impact of wealth inequality on free-market mechanisms, for some reason.

As much as it might pain you, basic economy principles are a kin to natural laws, in the sense that even if you try your hardest to pretend they don't exist... They are always there.

Additionally, one of the main errors you're making is conflating how economies work with your personal opinion on how you preferred things to happen without paying any attention to unintended consequences, let alone basic relationships between cause and effect.

> basic economy principles are a kin to natural laws

killing, stealing and raping are "a kin to natural laws". They exist, but don't pretend that they're helping.

The free market would have helped if it got masks to those who need it. It didn't. It therefore, in this context, failed to help, natural laws or no. All else is philosophy.

>Wrong why? I mean, in a time of scarcity how do you ensure that only those who need it the most are able to self-moderate their purchases?

On the other hand, how do you ensure that the poor have equal access to items that could save their life?

In that case when supply is the sam, demand increases, and prices stay the same then you run out of stock. Someone then needs to distribute the product "fairly". I assume you think that should be the government?

FIFO is much more ethical in this case, than to substantially raise the prices and then wait for those with a lot of money and reject the people who can not afford it...

Quantity demanded drives supply too, not just price. Manufacturers won't say "no" to the extra revenue from increased sales volume at the same prices.

Price controls will only result in low or no supply. If a country limits prices of, say, respirators, it will work for a moment. But then retailers will sell their inventory and, unable to charge more, they will be outbid by those in countries without price controls. Then people who really need the goods, e.g. the immunocompromised, can't get them, even if they are willing to pay the market price.

Here is an interesting podcast episode about this phenomenon in an area hit by a hurricane: https://www.econtalk.org/munger-on-price-gouging/

This is also what happened in a number of European countries due to the pandemic.

> Price controls will only result in low or no supply.

This gets trotted out again and again even though it doesn't apply to the kind of price gouging we saw at the beginning of the pandemic. It wasn't 3M raising prices, it was third parties buying up supply in bulk and then reselling at a higher price. This has no impact on supply, because the manufacturer is not seeing any increase in profit margin - it's all going to parasitic rent seekers in the middle.

If you want the government to enforce a maximum price on a good then you should demand the government itself to sell that good for a fixed price under some sort of rationing rules so that everyone gets their fair share. Anything else will just lead to mismanagement.

Don't make the mistake of ignoring physical reality when talking about economy. A market isn't just a list of prices. Behind those numbers are real goods that exchange hands and have to be produced. If you just play around with some numbers you don't change anything about reality. Government price controls such as minimum wages or maximum prices for goods are just that: Playing with numbers. Since the government absolves itself of the consequences of its policies it can promise the moon and get away with causing pain and suffering.

If you really want a solution then you should start by enacting a policy that combines both the physical and economical world and sets the right incentives. Instead of a minimum wage have a job guarantee, instead of enforcing a maximum price on private sellers have a commodity guarantee that you will sell and produce masks at a fixed price. Once you fix the physical world the economical portion will fix itself.

But it does have impact -- people with greater need (i.e. those willing to pay more) can get what they need from the middleman, even if they wouldn't be able to in a first come first served system (which will inevitably be abused by people who can automate stuff, something that can also be seen in registration of limited time slots). They are effectively paying the middleman for reserving the goods for them.

Direct to consumer sales are a relatively new thing. Retailers and other middlemen are still the overwhelming majority of volume for stuff like masks, toilet paper, soap. Or do you buy toilet paper online straight from the manufacturer?

Btw, in a country without significant manufacturing capacity, everyone importing the needed goods is a "parasitic rent seeker".

On the other hand, if you are talking about hospitals and other institutional buyers, from what I've seen, it was mostly US based institutions and companies outbidding everyone else. Are you saying that you would have preferred those masks, respirators or ventilators remained in China or the EU?

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